Investment in Unmanned Vehicles
The Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning announced on May 17 that it launches an unmanned vehicle R&D project by investing 40 billion won for three years to come with the investment for this year scheduled to 15 billion won.
The South Korean government has invested approximately 284 billion won in this field of technology for the past four years. Nevertheless, South Korea’s unmanned vehicle technology is regarded as falling behind those of China and developed countries in terms of price and performance.
During the past projects, the technological development was divided into different fields, such as self-driving cars, unmanned surface vehicles and unmanned aircraft, and this has resulted in long development periods and large development costs along with high entry barriers from field to field.
At this time, however, the ministry is to work on common platforms covering all the different segments. In addition, the government is planning to help small companies and venture firms in South Korea refine their technology so that better small unmanned aircraft like drones can be supplied to the domestic public service market.